Book Review of If It Bleeds…

Stephen King and I have a mixed relationship – very often I love his stuff and marvel at the cleverness of the ideas, and at other times i just can’t get into it.  His latest collection of four novellas aptly reflects this – three I enjoyed and the other i skipped past (I listened to this one on audio).

The titular story is naturally the best, and the reason I was drawn to the book – it’s a Holly Gibney story – the secondary character of the Mr Mercedes series who became so popular she was featured in The Outsider as well.  She’s a decent, quirky and clever woman – and this was a powerful story that opens us up to the idea that there may be other “outsiders” in our world, feeding on suffering in different ways.  Jerome Robinson and his sister return in this familiar but new and exciting story that suggests there may even be hope for more.

The Rat is a story about a writer who makes the metaphorical deal with the devil to finish his novel Bitter River, and then has to deal with the consequences.  No doubt King sees much of himself in elements of this, and I enjoyed this one too, although not as much as the opening story Mr Harrigan’s Phone, which takes us back to when iPhones were new and imagines them connecting beyond the grave.  This was a great way to open the collection with something fresh, new and thought-provoking.  I couldn’t get into Life of Chuck.

A pretty solid listen on audio, worth a look if you are a fan.

Book Review of The Glass Hotel

I really loved Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven, a beautiful dystopian fiction that highlighted a magical quality in connecting disparate characters.

Some of that magic is present in her next novel The Glass Hotel, one I had been eagerly awaiting.

The Glass Hotel refers to a beautiful property on remote Caiette in Canada – a place where all the characters in the text meet at some point. So you have that same collection of loosely connected characters.  Central is Vincent – beautiful and alone.  She lives independently from a young age although she has an older brother who she is partially estranged from.  One night as a bartender at the Hotel Caiette she meets Johnathan Alkaitis – a wealthy businessman who offers her a life of wealth and ease.  A handful of years later, she disappears from a boat, a humble and anonymous cook.  This is just one mystery the author poses, and then gradually reveals.  The other occurs on the same night Vincent and Alkaitis meet – her brother writes a shocking message on a window for no apparent reason.

The background to all is rooted in both the past and the future – which is gradually unravelled by Mandel.

It’s a good solid novel – cleverly plotted but not quite as compelling as Station Eleven. It’s a novel that will spark your curiosity, but wont make it to your list of the compulsively readable.

Book Review of The Strangers We Know

I quite enjoyed Pip Drysdale’s The Sunday Girl as a light read while I was travelling a few months ago – a story of falling for the wrong guy and then finding out just how wrong it could go! I figured her next novel, The Strangers We Know sounded similarly good for holiday listening.

Indeed these two books follow largely the same formula – although this second one has a few more twists and turns and subplots but also a less likeable heroine. Charlie is an actress, and her endless narrating of how she must appear to people was a little exhausting. Nonetheless this kept me moderately interested for about 12 hours and wasn’t too predictable. Choose as a light read only.

Book Review of Dervla McTiernan’s The Sisters

I really enjoy Dervla McTiernan’s Cormac Reilly novels, and this little gem was a recent Audible Original that members could choose to download for free.

Set ten years before the first in the series, The Ruin, The Sisters centres around a known characters, Carrie Ryan, at the beginning of her police career and struggling to enter the “boys club” of the Garda.  She lives with her sister Aifric, a young lawyer and while to two see the law very differently, both are committed to justice for the innocent, after an unfounded accusation causes the suicide of their brother.

Aifric comes home one evening concerned about a young man, Robert Collins who has been accused of murder.  To her, the evidence just doesn’t add up – and no-one in her law firm is willing to spend the time to really look into it.  But when she convinces Carrie there may be more to the case, not only does Carrie find clues that lead in a new direction, she finds herself at odds with the established officers in her workplace.  Will she choose justice or self-preservation?

A great read at three and a bit hours, definitely one for fans.

Book Review of Stephen King’s Cell

There aren’t many Stephen King novels I haven’t read, and Cell was one that somehow slipped through the cracks – perhaps because it isn’t one of the supernatural ones that I prefer.

That being said Cell was readable and engaging.  The premise is that humanity is impacted in what is possibly an act of terror through the cell network system.  Anyone who answers their phone is impacted, becoming violent and mindless.  At least thats what it seems to be to Clay and the other survivors (or “normies”) he bands up with – Tom, Alice and Jordan.  Together they travel through the country aiming to find Clay’s son Johnny, who they hope is unaffected.

But along the way they realise the “phoners” aren’t really mindless, but are a hive mind, represented both in real life and in their dreams by a Harvard-sweater wearing Raggedy Man,  who appears to be herding them to a spot in Maine called Kashwak.

A confrontation is inevitable, and I was mildly engaged rather than absorbed.  But worth the read.

 

Book Review of The Institute

There are two types of Stephen King – the scary and the psychic.  This belongs to the latter category – no killer clowns here.  No sleuths either – this feels like King back in his niche.

The Institute is a very readable vintage King which explores the lives of young people who are kidnapped from their lives to harness their barely-existent psychic powers for unknown purposes.  At the institute, they are subjected to shots and experimentation in order to bring out and amplify these abilities – until they are deemed ready to go to the mysterious “back half”.

But two boys are about to arrive at the institute who will change everything.  Luke Ellis is a certified genius – with incredibly minor telekinesis.  But that intelligence will lead him to successfully find a way to escape the institute’s clutches, and try to find a way to tell the world about what is going on.  The second is Avery Dixon – a boy with the greatest telepathic potential the institute has seen in a generation.  Together, they are able to bring together all the other stolen children and attempt a coup – which leads them to a disgraced New York City Cop working as a small-town Night-Knocker.  Only he believes their story.

This was a chilling and enthralling read which I think anyone would enjoy.  And just when you think you’re at the end of this unthinkable crime – the true purpose of the Institute is revealed… and you’re left with even more to ponder.  Definitely should be on your list.  I listened on audio.

Book Review of The Lost Girls

This Australian time-travelling tale had appealing elements. It starts slowly, with the main character Stella noticing a lack of blue jacaranda blossoms on the Sydney streets.. and gradually as she finds her home boarded up and her mobile phone inoperable she figures out she is lost 20 years in the past. She seeks refuge in her own family, posing as her long-lost Aunt Linda returning after running away from home 30 years ago.

But many complications await…. especially when the older Stella realises her daughter Claire, who died in her late teens, is still alive as a delightful and naive pre-teen.  She becomes determined to stay and ensure Claire’s safety – but with each passing day she is re- shaping and re-writing her own past – in ways she will never know.  As she changes the memory of her younger self, so too do her memories change.  Future family members fade from existence and pleasant memories of the past are darkened by the unwelcome visitor who has overstayed her welcome… and still the older Stella cannot let go.

But one thing remains… in every possible future, Claire dies.  Even when Stella directs takes action against those involved with her death, the death itself no matter what.  And there is another lost girl mystery to solve too – the mystery of the real Linda, whose reappearance brings figures from the past and stories that need to be told out into the limelight.

There was enough here to keep interesting me in the end, although only moderately compelling.  But i appreciated the cleverness of the continued time changes, and the ongoing nature of the reveal around the Linda mystery.  Ambitious and solid.

Book Review of The Scholar

I’ve come back to these very readable Dervla McTiernan mysteries even though I complained somewhat that the main character isn’t really crucial to the solving of the mystery in the first in the sequence, The Ruin.

No such complaints about her second Cormac Reilly novel, The Scholar.  This is a much more traditional mystery, and Reilly is imperative to the storyline, and a much more fleshed out character.

It starts with a hit and run accident, called in by his girlfriend Emma.  The victim she believes – from recognising the clothing – is Carline Darcy, the granddaughter of a well known scientist.  But when Carline Darcy appears alive, a thicker plot exists and a connection between the two young women slowly comes to light.

I really enjoyed this novel, a purchase on Audible.  A little predictable in places, but some good characterisation and complex relationships carry this through. Reilly is a much more intriguing character here and carries the literary leading man title much more reliably.  I’ll definitely take in the next one when it is released.

Book Review of The Sunday Girl

Sorry to be a broken record – but this was another great, light, engaging holiday read.  I promise i have something a little more challenging on the go too.

The Sunday Girl is all about love gone dangerously wrong. We start with Taylor grieving the loss of her no-good boyfriend Angus – who ditched her to take an exotic holiday with his ex.  But Angus isn’t just a cad, gradually he is revealed to be abusive, both physically and emotionally.  As Taylor grapples with this, she decides to take action, spurred on by a copy of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.  See, reading really does teach you stuff.

She puts a few things in place to punish Angus for his rampant infidelity- but soon he comes back begging her to forgive him.  She cannot resist.

But it soon becomes clear that Angus has begun a game of cat and mouse with deadly consequences.  It will be up to Taylor to fool him, placate him, and finally extricate herself.  But will she be able to do so before something truly terrible happens?  Just how much is one person capable of?

An easy read and one that keeps you coming back to it to figure out whats next.  Just what you want in an airport.

Review of Audible’s Killer By Nature

The old radio plays are coming back thanks to the popularity of podcasts and of audiobooks, and it really was a delight to listen to this performance. It’s a forgotten art that I am so pleased to see returning.

Every month Audible produces a few original titles and members can choose two to download, and this was onw of mine.  A good choice.  The main character Dr Diane Buckley is a  psychologist working with a confessed killer, Allan Dinklage.  Now that a copy cat is committing murders in such chillingly similar details – details that have been kept from the press – stunned investigators wonder if Dinklage had an accomplice, or if there is a threat in their own department.

Dinklage himself isn’t really playing along, although asks to join the team at a crime scene which has disastrous results.

Meanwhile, at home, Dinklage’s children find her distant and distracted and she worries about the mental health and the dizzying possibilities of a daughter who is a bully and lacks empathy.

A pretty engaging listen – especially with all the wonderful sound effects.